TECH TALK: The Best of Tech Talk 2005: Emergic Ecosystem and Netcore

2005 also saw me help co-found a few companies and make investments in others. Each of the three co-founded companies (Novatium, Seraja and Rajshri Media) have strong leadership and great market opportunities ahead of them. Novatium makes network computers. Seraja is building the EventWeb. Rajshri Media is creating and aggregating content for tomorrows mobile-centric and broadband world. All of these three companies will face the market in 2006. That will be the real test.

Over the past 18 or so months, I have been working to bring the “Emergic Ecosystem” to life. I see this future as built around thin access devices [“teleputers” or mobile network computers the intersection of network computers and mobile phones] connected to centralised services over broadband wired and wireless networks. This two-way, multimedia web will get created first in emerging markets like India where there is limited legacy.

Every once in a while comes a platform shift in computing which creates new opportunities. We saw that shift in the early 1980s as the personal computing platform started to replace the world of centralized mainframes and mini-computers. We are in the midst of another such shift now as network-centric computing (with Ajax-ish interfaces) and broadband networks convert the desktop computers into terminals to connect to the Internet. The PC world shifted power away from the likes of IBM and created Intel and Microsoft. For the past two decades, Microsoft has reigned as the king of the computing world. Now, Google is the challenger and potential heir to Microsofts throne.

I believe that even as there is the shift taking place to network computing and virtual applications, we are seeing the emergence of the next platform. This platform will take root first amongst users in emerging markets those who havent completely experienced or benefited from the computing and Internet revolution. This leapfrog represents an opportunity to build the next computing and media giant. This new platform is what I call the mobile network computer.

Netcore is the keystone of this ecosystem that I am working to build. We need to create platforms for enabling solutions for consumers and small- and medium-sized enterprises, both on PCs (and network computers) and mobile phones. The focus is on building what I think of as EMMIC an Emerging Market Mobile and Internet Conglomerate. If done right, this is a company which can be the Google for the Emerging Markets (GEM) in terms of impact and influence. We have the ideas, and have worked to build the early prototypes and platforms for much of 2005. It is a very ambitious strategy but one I believe we can make work. That is my greatest challenge in 2006.

This quote by Daniel Burnham (via Atanu Dey) sums up my philosophy: Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir mens blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.

With this, I wish you all a wonderful New Year. May all our dreams come true in 2006.